Insight with HReSource

In this episode of our Insight series we talk to award winning broadcast journalist Felicity Hannah. Felicity has balanced her established freelance work with home schooling and sharing her normal office space with partner, three sons and a dog.

In her day job Fliss regularly talks to business owners, consumers and experts in a wide variety of fields. Who better to gauge the current mood of the nation and assess how life after lockdown may look?

From Edinburgh ghost tour guide to Virtual Reality meetings and pain, passion and success of lego we cover a wide area of topics in this fascinating chat.

Bio - Felicity Hannah, a Philosophy Graduate from Edinburgh University, who has established a successful career as a freelance print and broadcast journalist, specialising in consumer affairs, business and personal finance. She regularly writes for the Times, The Independent, The Mirror and for the BBC News website. Felicity also regularly covers the presenter spot for BBC Radio 5 Live’s Wake Up To Money and can often be found hosting Money Box Live on Radio 4. Last year Felicity won two awards for her broadcast journalism. She also has three sons under 10 and a dog so she's certainly busy.

Website: http://felicityhannah.co.uk/Twitter: https://twitter.com/FelicityHannah

In this episode we explore Alastair's new book How to Build a Better Business Plan.  We evaluate the importance of planning and the opportunities for investment and growth borne out of a well drafted and impactful plan.

We look at the key steps required to structure a comprehensive and universally understood business plan and set the guide in context with the demands of businesses emerging from a global crisis.

This is probably as good a time as ever to stand back and consider the purpose and direction of your business.  Even if you have a plan it's worth checking in to see if you have all the bases covered because Alastair leaves no stone unturned.

Our guest Alastair Thomson is a Law graduate and qualified accountant who’s worked at C-Suite level for a number of multinational organisations. 

His financial qualifications have seen Alastair in great demand within a range of senior roles including manufacturing, B2B services, utilities and financial services.

In his many CEO assignments Alastair has created high growth businesses out of formerly staid performers, typically doubling revenues in 3 years or less, with improved profit performance to match. 

These results are in no small part due to the entrepreneurial side to Alastair’s management approach. His focus has always been on growing revenues and profits than the traditional cost management pre-occupation accountants are better known for. 

As he often says, “The problem with cost cutting is that if you spend £10,000 on something now, the most you can ever add to the bottom line with cost cutting is £10,000, because once you get the cost down to zero you can’t save any more. However, with a good product and effective marketing, your opportunity to grow sales is effectively unlimited. So that’s where you get a better return for time invested.”

Currently, Alastair supports a range of ambitious entrepreneurial businesses with significant growth plans as a board advisor and fractional CFO.

Alastair has written two books: “Cash Flow Surge: 101 No-Cost and Low-Cost Fast-Action Strategies to Boost Your Business Cash Flow” and “How to Build a Better Business Plan”, both of which help business owners and entrepreneurs demystify the financial side of building and running their businesses.

In addition to his executive roles, Alastair has served as Chairman and Non-Executive Director for a range of charitable organisations, mainly in the education sector. He also served as Chairman of the Northern Business Forum, an organisation dedicated to supporting business growth in the North of England, working with government agencies, business membership organisations and employers of all sizes.

Books: How to Build a Better Business Plan and Cash Flow Surge

Website: https://thebetterbusinesscompany.com 

Twtter: FinanceDirCFO

LinkedIn: Alastair Thomson

Our guest, Rachel Flower, is a qualified and highly experienced lawyer, leadership mentor, business coach, public speaker, advocate for female entrepreneurship and one of the co-founders of Excluded UK.

In this episode of HReSource Insights Rachel will be talking to me about Active Orbit a business she founded last year which as our copy above eludes offers tremendously powerful combination of personal value-based rewards linked to the tracked physical efforts of its community’s members. Active Orbit is an app led fitness programme that engages with its community by promoting activity supporting a healthier lifestyle. Through its unique connection with UK retailers, member activity can be collated and used as a currency affording discounts on a wide variety of goods and services.

We explore the creation of the original concept, trials of launching a new business mid pandemic the product’s evolution and a look forward to how the other side of Covid-19 might look for this very exciting venture.

In addition to running Active Orbit Rachel is the co-founder of the Broadroom, a network of like-minded individuals not exclusively for women but with a clear intent to encourage, support and engage with fellow female entrepreneurs. She also runs legal consultancy Serenwood.

Rachel lives in Yorkshire but you just might hear the lilt of a Welsh accent especially when speaking passionately as she does frequently on subjects very close to her heart.

You can find out more by visiting their website; https://activeorbit.co.uk/ or send an email to [email protected]

Our very special guest for this episode of the HReSource podcast is DAME STEPHANIE SHIRLEY - Pioneering entrepreneur, innovator, problem solver and philanthropist. If you thought home based, flexible working and equality and inclusivity in the workplace were new concepts you might be surprised to hear they were the cornerstone of Dame Stephanie’s first company, Freelance Programmers founded in 1962. It was ultimately valued at almost $3 billion and made 70 of her staff millionaires. 

In this podcast we investigate Dame Stephanie’s love of maths, early career in computing, the sparks and obstacles that led to forming the company, a girl named Steve, relationships, partnerships, public speaking on a global scale and ultimate sense of accomplishment in being a hugely successful Venture Philanthropist – not simply offering financial support to causes close to her heart such as Autism, the charity Autistica and specialist schools but in so doing providing the strategic focus and idea generation to help ensure such support delivers successful outcomes. 

DAME STEPHANIE SHIRLEY CH is a workplace revolutionary and successful IT entrepreneur turned ardent philanthropist. In 1962, she founded an all-woman software company that pioneered remote working, upending the expectations of the time. It was ultimately valued at almost $3 billion and made 70 of her staff millionaires. Since ‘retiring’, her focus has been on philanthropy, especially autism and IT. Her TED Talk has had over 2 million views, and her memoir, ‘Let It Go’, is being made into a film produced by BAFTA-winning Damian Jones. ‘So To Speak’ an anthology of some 30 speeches from the past 40 years was published in November 2020. Copies of her books can be ordered via www.steveshirley.com – every penny she receives goes to Autistica, the medical research charity she founded. 

Twitter @DameStephanie_ Instagram @DameStephanie_

A fascinating episode exploring the connections and lessons we can learn to help our personal and commercial development via insights shared from the world of elite performance and high profile sporting organisations. 

We take a look at Grant's successful career spanning work for Glasgow Rangers, Middlesbrough FC, Manchester City and the FA, drawing lessons from this experience.  We identify key areas where business owners, executives and managers can learn from elite sports management:

Grant Downie OBE is a consultant in medical & performance solutions for elite sport & industry. Grant's distinguished career spans over 34 years at the heart of professional football & elite sport.

Discover more of Grant Downie and resources he has made freely available at his website - https://grantdownie.co.uk 

Emma is well known as the 'Voice of London's Buses', London's Overground Trains and the London River-bus, heard by more than 9 million Londoners and tourists. To date she has recorded a mind-blowing 60,000 announcements. I will also be the voice of the new Elizabeth Line (Crossrail).

Emma’s voiceover work ranges from corporate films to commercials, telephone systems to public address systems.

In this podcast we explore the work of a Voice Over Artist and the experience of working from home with clients across the globe as well as Emma's additional business in running a successful PR consultancy supporting local businesses.

Emma Hignett 

VoiceOver Artist

• Transport for London 'Voice of London's Buses'

• London's Overground Trains

• Elizabeth Line (Crossrail)

• London Riverbus, heard by more than 9 million Londoners and tourists

• Recorded a mind-blowing 60,000 announcements 

Examples of other client brands

• Trafford Centre

• Fendi

• Whirlpool

• Royal Dutch Airlines

• English Heritage

• Virgin

• Visit Dubai

As well as the voice over work Emma runs a public relations consultancy specialising in independent retail.

Contact https://emmahignett.com Twitter @emmahignett 

This episode is the first in series 2 which will be going under the title of "Managing Forward" 

In series 1 we dealt with "Coping with Covid" and whilst we know it's still very much with us we thought a positive outlook on success and forward thinking should be our focus throughout this collection of insights.

In this episode entrepreneur Amanda Thomson outlines the challenges faced this year and the success of her newly created sparkling wine which is creating quite a storm is the drinks industry.

With a growing trend toward living healthier lifestyles our desire to pop a cork at the drop of a hat doesn't now need to follow with a bad head the next day.

Groundbreaking brand Noughty created by Amanda and her team will truly surprise you, a vegan, halal, low sugar, alcohol free bottle of fizz, it really is very good.

With growing sales and international demand we can expect to hear a lot more of Noughty with Amanda able to call on her many year's experience as a broadcaster for the BBC.

A thoroughly enjoyable discussion with one of the UK's brightest entrepreneurs.  

Amanda Thomson is CEO and Founder of Thomson & Scott, voted one of Business Insider’s Coolest People in Food & Drink 2019. Thomson is leading the global shift to delicious alcohol-free drinking with her game-changing Noughty - the first top quality organic, vegan, halal non-alcoholic low sugar sparkling wine.

Raised on a plant-based, no sugar diet by her health-conscious mother, Thomson has always had a keen interest as to what’s in her food. Formerly an Arts Broadcaster at the BBC, Thomson moved her young family to Paris and studied for her Diploma in Wine at the renowned Le Cordon Bleu School where she was Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 and an EY Winning Woman.

Thomson & Scott now sells in key territories around the world including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the US and will shortly be appearing on the shelves at Waitrose stores.

https://thomsonandscott.com/pages/our-story/ 

Outline

In this episode David Laud explores the career and current challenges of one of the key figures running a globally recognised data measurement and management company.

At the forefront of supporting the UK Governments efforts to contain and communicate effectively on Covid19 matters, Kelly Beaver has had a challenging but ultimately rewarding 2020.

This episode of the HReSource series, covering organisational and individual responses to the pandemic, helps to shine a spotlight on an inspirational leaders work in leading a multi skilled team in delivering support for high profile clients.

An open and frank conversation, which in our opinion, is definitely worth hearing . 

Bio

Kelly Beaver regularly engages with the Government in translating complexities into practicalities from data findings sourced from Ipsos MORI surveys and assists at both a National and Local Government level to support strategies and communication campaigns borne out of her team’s work during the current Covid19 crisis.

Since the recording of this podcast Kelly has been promoted form her role as the Managing Director of Ipsos MORI’s Public Affairs division, a team of over 250 evaluation, advisory and social research professionals to that of CEO.

Previously Kelly led Ipsos MORI’s policy and evaluation unit, which is now a national leader in delivering evaluation services to the UK government.

Kelly joined Ipsos MORI from PwC where she worked within the Research, Strategy and Policy Group and The Evaluation Partnership (subsequently Coffey International Development).

Introduction

Anthony Grey is an accomplished Business Development professional who has an impeccable track record of building, managing and delivering new business pipelines. His consultative sales approach and strategic thinking has helped him build new business with globally recognised brands.

Our guest has a very engaging personality and his undoubted communication skills have led to opening doors at the very highest levels in the corporate world.

Interestingly he also has a side hustle that of itself can break the ice at even the hardest pitch for business.

Join David Laud in a fascinating conversation with Anthony where he shares his views on the changing landscape of sales and how he’s managed both a successful corporate career and gained global recognition for his side hustle.

In this, episode 9 of our covid series Anthony discusses the impact of Covid and technology on the sales process, the future of business development and challenges faced by those charged with introducing customers to the organisation.

Of course we discuss the Side Hustle...and were the "sideburns" in the title a clue??   Take a listen to this entertaining episode to find out. 

Links:  

NetRivals 

LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-grey-87290b4/